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How do you link individual practice programmes to a club’s playing philosophy?
Firstly, you have to understand the detail of the playing philosophy. If you want to play creative, thoughtful football then centre backs will need to be as comfortable on the ball as midfi elders so you can build from the back. Also, you may have players with similar targets so their programmes dictate that formations need to be fl exible to enable them all to practice their targets in match play.
This means you would need to put on a variety of tactical based sessions across the season, some which look at playing without a forward and others which look at playing with a sweeper, for example.
Once you have an idea of the types of session you need to deliver to fi t into the playing philosophy you can focus on individual players’ needs - which are based around the individual strengths you have identifi ed.
So a session might be set up which is working on the general principles of breaking the lines but you are focusing on encouraging a dribbler [player x] to dribble as much as possible in the session. To do so, you may put player x on the team with less players making them dribble more often.
Within the same session, player y - who has been challenged to improve their range and variety of passing– might be positioned on the team with more players, giving them lots of diff erent passing options and opportunities to make relevant decisions.
Being strategic in the way you approach practice design – tweaking the number of players on each side, being clever about who plays where and focusing on how the practice design and the individual player challenges link can allow for multiple individual player outcomes within one session.
Which style and brand of football ‘drives’ your Programme? Pitch one
Pitch two
Does each player have an individual challenge in every practice?
Within one session I might deliver a minimum of three, maybe four, opposed practices. In one practice you can focus on three or four players then in your next practice you may tweak things so the benefi t is for three or four diff erent players. Crucially, all the other players are still working all the time in every practice – it’s just that the coach’s focus may be on specifi c players at certain times.
How does this way of working link to the games programme?
Games must be seen as a balance between the ‘special event’ for the players and an extension of training in which the players’ individual programmes are not forgotten.
Winning should be recognised as being more important as the players progress through the age-groups but never at the expense of the adopted philosophy, individual development or the importance of equal opportunities for all the players to improve and progress.
In the same way that practices are designed to help a player work on particular areas of their game, matchday should be no diff erent. Otherwise training and matchday become two separate things that don’t link together which can be confusing for the players. It is important to view each game as part of the developmental process and journey of the player rather than separate events.
For example in a 50 game season, do you view these as 50 diff erent events or one event repeated 50 times?
NO RISKS
PLAY WITH FREEDOM ALL OVER THE PITCH
SAFE & RELIABLE
Pitch one shows how some coaches encourage creativity in the fi nal third with other aspects encouraged in the middle and defensive thirds.
CREATIVITY Culture v common sense
Pitch two encourages creativity and freedom across all three thirds
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